(A/N: Wow. That's literally all I can say, is just wow. Every few minutes, I'll check my Inbox, and there's another Alert, or a Favorite Story, or a Review, or something like that.

And the reviews themselves are great! Thanks to everyone for the support and encouragement I was looking for to keep this fic going! All those who have posted ideas, I'm taking them into consideration!

You people are making this fic live as much as I am writing it!)

You Don't Hear the Bullet

The Ghost

Two Years Later

Freedom's Progress Colony

"Prazza, I'm not going over this with you again!"

"But we've got enemy mechs –everywhere- and you just want to ignore a Cerberus shuttle that just –happens- to be coming down on our heads?!"

Keelah! Some days, she just wanted to strangle the idiot for his stupidity, while other days she just wanted to shoot him, avoid all the trouble of waiting for his bio-suit to run out of air. Why, of all the quarians in the Migrant Fleet, had such a moron been chosen to accompany her to find Veetor?

Tali missed what was known as 'the old days,' back when Shepard was around. They'd have a mission wrapped up in hours, not days, and they didn't have to put up with idiocy. Shepard only took on the best, and the team they had assembled had been fantastic. Every enemy that came before them was mercilessly blown over, bulldozed and sent face first to hell.

Of course, if you had mentioned Kenneth Shepard to her about a year ago, chances were she would have broken down right in front of you and cried her eyes out.

Not anymore.

Tali'zorah vas Neema was a completely different woman, a hard-set, resolute-minded quarian determined to make sure she and as many people around her as she could made it through whatever happened.

So, for what seemed like the hundredth time, she sighed, gritting her teeth as her hand pressed the button on her helmet to activate her radio.

"Prazza, right now that shuttle is the least of our worries. Tell the squad to regroup and meet me at the central catwalk maintenance hub. We need to rethink our strategy."

"…copy that."

Though Prazza was a moron, and a pessimistic one at that, two traits that should never be combined, he understood that she was in command here, and would follow orders. Although, she'd feel better if she had a squad of Migrant Fleet Marines at her back. Or, failing that, a few Alliance marines.

But the scouts sent to scan the planet had reported no sign of hostile movement, and the Alliance didn't even have a token garrison anywhere in the Terminus Systems. These colonies had been settled by human corporations, same as anywhere else in human space, but the Alliance could not reach into the Terminus.

"It didn't used to be like this…" she muttered, her hand moving to her belt to pull the old human revolver from its holster. A solid slug weapon, the thing had to be at least twenty years old, but the stopping power it provided was definitely not something to pass over.

Quarians lived on the fringes of other species' existences, and that also meant using their weapons, too. The few ships in the Migrant Fleet made for manufacturing were given over to machinery, bio-suits and other far more important things that could not be obtained outside the Fleet. Weapons, on the other hand, were in enormous supply from foreigners. The bullets for her own sidearm were expensive as hell, but fortunately, powder based projectiles were still in great supply in old armories and the criminal elements of the galaxy.

She checked the chamber, snapping the cylinder shut before holstering it and pulling a far more modern Scimitar II shotgun from her back. At least she didn't need to worry about ammunition for this weapon, just thermal clips.

Freedom's Progress was a depressing sight to behold. After seeing so many other human colonies, such as a rebuilt Eden Prime, Feros when it got back up to speed, and even Horizon once or twice, she had become used to seeing humans in such great numbers. Whereas barely ten years before they'd been as rare a sight to behold as a drell or a quarian, it seemed humanity had simply flooded onto the galactic scene. As she understood it, Earth's population currently stood at eleven billion, and it was climbing all the time.

She slipped off the hab-unit she had been standing on, pausing on the walkway next to it for only a second before turning and hustling through another door, shotgun up and ready. Veetor had set some of the LOKI mechs in proximity mode, activating only when a heat source came within a few yards. In their undeployed, compacted state, the mechanical security devices were impossible to see until you were right on top of them. Poor Veetor, he really had to be in a state if he couldn't tell friend from foe.

Months of working by herself or as the head of a team had hardened Tali from head to toe, from mind to soul. Fit as a Marine, technologically savvy as anyone else in the Fleet, she had proven she could accomplish the impossible several times now, and didn't balk to intimidation or long odds. Hell, she almost relished it, a chance that gave her time to think back and recall her time on Shepard's team…

The facility was clearly deserted, the underground cavern hidden beneath the freighter compartments that the hypnotized colonists had placed there to guard their secret. As they moved through the prothean ruins, every team member kept their weapons raised, all three packing shotguns.

"Eyes sharp," muttered Shepard, leaning around a corner. "This place is a CQB deathtrap…"

"No doubt to that," declared Ashley, double checking the thermal clip in her own weapon.

Tali said nothing, unsure of what kind of combat jargon she should be spouting. Even though she'd told Shepard she could handle herself, and she did know how to use her weapons, she was more used to sneaking up on isolated geth patrols and hacking them quickly. Those mercenaries back on the Citadel hadn't been much of a problem either, a simple matter of overloading their barriers and using some clever explosives. Granted, she'd never expected shotgun blasts and the rattling of assault rifle fire to suddenly ring out from the staircase and tear into them, but before she could even blink, three more contestants had joined the fight, soldiers by the look of them. A krogan, a turian and even a human. That was where she'd first met him...

"So what now? It sounds to me like we just find this Thorian thing and destroy it, right?"

Ashley snorted, laughing as they finally found the main chamber.

"If you ask me, we just need to put a bullet in this thing's head, and we…can…"

All three fell silent, rightly so, as they took in the –full- picture of just what the Thorian was.

"That…doesn't look like any plant I've ever seen…" Tali pointed out uselessly, lost for other words as her eyes glanced over the thick tentacles, the hulking mass, the almost face-like…face, for lack of better terms.

"We are going to need bigger guns…" muttered Shepard. He was still for a moment, studying the creature quietly before suddenly spouting "…nothing's ever –SIMPLE-, is it?!"

The door slid open, and Prazza turned, having been addressing his squad beforehand, and nodded stiffly to Tali, the others parting to let her at the hologram projector they had set up.

"Tali'zorah. Good to see you made it."

"Prazza, I'm almost up to my neck in my tolerance for your attitude. Let's get this started before I kill you myself."

She knelt down, followed by the others as they did the same, watching her move the map around until it fixed on the shack that they were in.

"Alright, this is our location. We've confirmed that Veetor is on the other side of the colony to the northwest, in the warehouses we saw. If we want the shortest route to him, we have two options."

She zoomed out a bit, before using her finger to point out the first route.

"This one will take us through the residential area. Lots of tight corners, plenty of places for security mechs to hide."

One of Prazza's men shook his head, grumbling "That's going to be a close-quarters nightmare."

Tali ignored him, knowing that pouncing on his comment would get them nowhere.

"The other route takes us through the loading bays. Lots of open room, but it loops quite a bit more, and we're more likely to run into heavy security."

"No way, I don't want to go against YMIR mechs…" muttered another woman, shaking her head.

Tali fought to control her rising anger as she pointed at the warehouses once more.

"Veetor is in there somewhere, and its our job to bring him back. I know you're not soldiers, but the Marines couldn't be sent."

Prazza decided to be an idiot again, no surprise. Honestly, the jackass had to be doing it on purpose for it to happen this much.

"What about that shuttle? I heard gunfire and explosions a bit ago. Those Cerberus bosh'tets are probably hammering their way through those mechs we managed to side skirt. I bet we'll be getting swarmed in Cerberus commandos anytime now."

"Prazza, did you see how small that thing was? If and when we run into them, I doubt there'll be more of them then there are of us! So shut up, sit down, and let me handle it if they find us!"

The man raised his hands to placate the furious machinist, muttering "Okay, okay…Keelah, didn't mean to piss you off…"

She growled under her breath, moving back to the hologram.

"Anyway…if we move quickly, we can-"

Suddenly, another door opened, and Prazza was the first to leap up, his turian assault rifle unfolded and at his shoulder.

"Stop right there!"

As Tali herself rose, already swatting Prazza's rifle to the side and sidestepping one of the squad members with a shotgun held uneasily in his hands, she caught a brief glimpse of the humans entering the room. Two wore very obvious Cerberus outfits, the orange ring symbol emblazoned somewhere on their black and white outfits. All she could see about the third in her rush to stop Prazza from getting them all killed, was that he was wearing heavy black armor. Two operatives with a commando, then?

"Prazza! You said you'd let –me- handle this!"

She turned away from the stubborn idiot, intending to speak to the humans and try to work out some way that wouldn't see them all sliced with more holes than a human cheese grater, when her body froze, her mind seeming to shut down as a realization struck her.

The commando's right sleeve was painted red. A stripe going all the way from the wrist, up past the elbow, and to the shoulder.

A Katana shotgun was clutched in his hands, rock steady arms holding the weapon at his waist, the barrel shifting slightly as if by accident, but really just changing targets.

White lettering declared 'N7' boldly on the breastplate.

Then…who else could that be, but…

Her eyes finally drifted up, flitting over cheeks decorated with barely-healed scars, past a layer of red stubble over a much older and better healed chin scar, a nose that looked as if it had been broken twice and hadn't properly healed the second time…

And met emerald green eyes that were undoubtedly as wide in shock as hers were.

The shoulders drooped a bit, the shotgun came down, and Commander Kenneth Shepard, confirmed KIA for more than two years, opened his mouth, obviously unsure of what to say.

But Tali had already come up with a word.

"Impossible…that's impossible…"

"…Tali?"

She turned to him fully now, feeling her eyes moisten once more and her barriers start to break down.

"I don't…I heard you die. I was at your funeral, the one the Alliance did for you…I…how?"

Shepard stood up straighter now, scratching his head like an awkward kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar, trying to come up with an explanation.

"Well…Cerberus rebuilt me. Revived me. I only woke up about a week ago."

They stared at each other in silence now, oblivious to the confused expressions of either party's members. Of course, with the quarians it was hard to tell by faces, but their body language definitely said that they were as perplexed as the humans.

And then, the shotgun hit the ground, clattering until it came to rest. With a clank of boots on metal, he strode forward, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her in close, squeezing her tightly.

And she broke down. Her head leaned into his shoulder, and her eyes began to stream with tears, her body choking with sobs. Whether they were tears of joy or tears of grief, not even she knew.

He just held her, not saying anything, not making a sound. Of course to him, he'd only seen her a short while ago, what must have seemed like a few weeks, maybe. But not only had she been forced to live with the memory of his death and accept the fact that he was gone, Tali also thought she had finally put him behind her, squared it away emotionally and built up her mental barriers. And now, here he was, breaking them down as easily as if they were glass, sending a torrent of grief at his loss, anger that he had suddenly popped up in her life again, sadness at the time she'd spent without him, and immense, irrevocable glee at the fact that this was indeed –not- a dream.

She managed to control herself again after a few minutes, however, and pulled away, sniffling but no longer sobbing.

His face was a mask of regret, self-hate and anger, but he still had a small smile on. Just for her, she realized.

"…I'm sorry I left," he said, softly.

In reply, she rested a hand on his cheek, whispering "It doesn't matter now. You're alive. You're back. That's all that's important."

The moment held together for one brief second, a pristine crystalline sort of second, before it was broken.

Miranda Lawson cleared her throat.

"Commander."

The word was simple, holding a dozen different meanings, but the tone was clearly a 'this is not the time for xenophilia' sort, and Shepard bared his teeth in irritation, briefly, before hiding them in his grimace and reluctantly letting Tali go. Likewise, she moved away unwillingly, knowing that they were on a mission, here on an important job.

They needed to get back to that mindset.

Shepard leaned down, scooping up his shotgun as he reapplied his Soldier Face.

"What are you doing here, Tali?"

She would have winced at his tone of voice, cold as a glacier and emotionless, but she knew it was all part of the act. He needed to get his 'game-face on' as humans called it, and she needed to do the same, quickly applying the figurative mask.

But, as she launched into how they had come here looking for Veetor, who they knew was here on this planet and was undoubtedly sick, she caught his eyes, his deep green eyes.

Those still smiled at her, an inviting fire in the middle of that chunk of ice that his face had become.

(A/N: to those of you who noticed, I am indeed tweaking the diologue a bit more than I would in another fic. Although its important to stick to what the game lays out for you, I feel that I've already blown that out of the water with circumstances. You'll recognize some lines, for sure, but alot of it is my spin, my timeline, my universe.

Because hey! That's what Mass Effect is all about!

Thanks for the support, people! Keep it up!)